Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Officials at Clemson University have confirmed that ordinary Christians are forbidden to exercise their First Amendment right to assemble on campus in discreet prayer unless they first obtain a permit, which then restricts them to a "designated free speech zone."

“. . . referring to a silent offer to pray as ‘solicitation’ is not fair. It’s a very different circumstance than someone coming on campus to solicit, say, a new textbook to students without permission.”-- Emily Jashinsky, Young Americans for Freedom

Kyra Palange was walking across Clemson’s campus last Thursday afternoon when she saw a man sitting in a folding chair, with an empty chair sitting next to him.

The Clemson grad student walked closer to him and saw a sign on the empty chair that said “PRAYER,” according to the Young America’s Foundation [YAF].

“I approached him and we sat down to pray for a few minutes,” Palange told Young America’s Foundation. “When we finished, a man from the university approached us and said he could not be praying there because it was not a ‘designated free speech area’ and presented the person who was praying with a form for the procedures for applying for ‘solicitation’ on campus. He told him he had to leave.”

Palange captured part of the interaction on video. In it, a Clemson University official identified as Shawn Jones confirms to Palange that the entire campus is not a “free speech area.”

The school is defending [Shawn Jones], arguing it would actually have violated the Constitution to not stop the man’s prayer.

“With him not being a student or faculty or staff, he has to go through the proper procedures in order to [do this] … this is not a designated free speech area,” Jones says in the video.

The praying man, [Clemson spokesman Mark] Land said, was not affiliated with a campus group, and he was allegedly soliciting because he had put up a sign inviting passersby to join him in prayer. Land also argued that the school’s action was directly in accordance with the Constitution, because the school was not giving the man a special exception from school policy because of the content of his speech.

. . . Clemson has been accused of having overly restrictive free speech policies. The school has a Red Light rating (the lowest) from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which rates schools on their free speech policies.

WeRoar Clemson, a group of students dedicated to fighting for First Amendment rights on campus, has identified the man as a well-known local “who prays with students in the community.”

“Free Speech zones were ended at Clemson in 2006 for students, but this policy remains in effect for non-students,” the group stated on Facebook. “Clemson University is a public university that receives taxpayer funds, therefore it must comply fully with the law of the land, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Clemson has failed its duty to uphold constitutional liberty.”

Saturday, August 27, 2016

A Congressional committee is recommending criminal charges against the University of New Mexico (UNM) for illegally handling aborted babies after learning that the medical school instructed high school students in dissection of fetal brains at a summer camp.

“Documentation obtained by the panel in the course of its investigation reflects that the transfer of fetal tissue from SWWO to UNM for research purposes is a direct violation of New Mexico’s Jonathan Spradling Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.”-- Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chair of the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives

Paul Roth, the dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, can be seen admitting to the allegation in [the above] video published this month by the New Mexico Alliance for Life.

Roth would not elaborate about the source of the aborted baby brains or the way in which the taxpayer-funded university obtained them to be sliced up by high school kids on the summer learning adventure.

[Congresswoman Marsha] Blackburn charged the school broke state laws governing the use of aborted fetal tissue it received from Southwestern Women’s Options [SWWO], which provides late-term abortions. Published reports said the tissue was used for research and even dissected at what has been described as summer camps in 2012 and 2014.

Blackburn told [New Mexico Attorney General Hector] Balderas that university officials trained new abortion doctors, referred women to outside abortion clinics, sent UNM faculty and residents to an abortion clinic during transition between owners, extended “voluntary faculty” status to local abortionists, supplied residents and fellows to perform abortions for SWWO, and put pressure on employees and students for political support, all in violation of state law..

Blackburn’s letter was accompanied by a scathing 291-page report outlining the relationship between UNM and SWWO and the use and advocacy of aborted tissues for research.

“Today, UNM Hospital performs surgical abortions for any reason through 25 weeks gestation,” said the report. “Since the time when opposition to participating in abortion procedures was the predominant view of UNM medical staff, the culture appears to have changed—along with the composition of UNM hospital and clinic personnel—to one aggressively in favor of the expansion of abortion.”

Earlier in June, the [House] panel sent evidence to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicating that Planned Parenthood and the human tissue procurement company StemExpress may have violated patients’ privacy under HIPPA.

[Paul Roth stated in the video,] "Yes, we had a faculty member who obtained some tissue, and during one of these summer workshops, uh, dissected I think one or two fetal brains."

Roth declined to confirm the source of the fetal brains when the questioner asked him “were those from Dr. Boyd’s?” The questioner is referring to the abortion facility operated by late-term abortionist, Curtis Boyd, who also teaches at the university’s medical school. . . .

Friday, August 26, 2016

The Virtual Infant Parenting program uses "robot babies" (designed to simulate and exaggerate the worst aspects of caring for newborn children) that are assigned to teenage girls to discourage pregnancy, but the largest study of its kind has determined that the program actually arouses desires for motherhood in young teenage girls.

"We never went into the study thinking this would increase teen pregnancy. . . . Unfortunately that's the finding."-- Sally Brinkman, University of Western Australia

Researchers found that girls between the ages of 13 and 15 who were given a simulator infant to look after were actually more likely to become pregnant early in life than those who had simple sex education.

Of those who had charge of a doll, 17 percent recorded at least one pregnancy -- whether carried to full term or terminated -- by the age of 20.

Of all the girls who fell pregnant, 53.8 percent of those who had the robot baby terminated the pregnancy compared with 60.1 percent in the control group.

The researchers said while that difference was not huge, it indicated participants who had exposure to the robot baby appeared more likely go through with the pregnancy.

Australian girls given a baby simulator for a weekend were 36 percent more likely to become pregnant during their teenage years, compared to girls in a control group who only received standard health education, researchers found.

Overall, the live birth rate was double for girls who participated in the infant simulator program -- 8 percent compared with 4 percent for the control group, researchers found.

The baby simulator program also appeared to convince girls to give birth rather than seek an abortion once they became pregnant, Brinkman said.

These results run counter to the intention of the program, which has been implemented in as many as 89 countries worldwide. It should make school districts think twice about employing baby simulators in their pregnancy prevention efforts, Brinkman said.

To help discourage teen pregnancy, many students in the Seattle area and nationally are given lifelike, robot babies that cry throughout the night. Unlike eggs or plants used to represent babies in some human-development classes, these dolls require feeding, burping and diaper changes. Like real infants, sometimes even that doesn’t stop their crying.

The Australia program was adapted from one in the United States, formerly known as “Baby Think It Over” and now called “RealCare Baby 3.” Along with Seattle, area schools districts that use RealCare Baby 3 include Highline, Everett and Kent.

The doll’s creator, Realityworks, says more than half the school districts in the [U.S.] have purchased its products.

The babies, which can run about $1,000 apiece, are programmed to cry, scream and sleep. Computers tucked within the dolls register when the babies are changed, burped, fed or — in instances where everything goes drastically wrong — when they “die.”

“We’ve had midnight telephone calls from parents saying: ‘Please tell me how to turn it off, my daughter’s going crazy,’” as Janette Collins, a London-based youth counselor said to the Financial Times last October. “It’s the very few girls who score really well that you have to look out for. In my experience they’re the ones who go off and get pregnant for real — you’ve accidentally taught them they can cope.”

“Anecdotally, a lot of the students really enjoyed the program,” study author Sally Brinkman, of Australia’s Telethon Kids Institute, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “There was a lot of positivity around the program, so it didn’t really work in putting the kids off.”

The gurgling dolls may have inadvertently made teen motherhood too appealing, with many students doting on their electronic progeny and enjoying the attention that came with it, the researchers said.

"We definitely were not saying you can't become a teenage mother. We didn't want to demonise that, but the intention was clearly behind the program to increase contraceptive use and if you were going to have a baby to do it in a healthy way, and part of doing it in a healthy way was to delay," [Dr. Brinkman] said.

"Evidence now suggests they do not have the desired long-term effect of reducing teenage pregnancy. These interventions are likely to be an ineffective use of public resources for pregnancy prevention," Dr Brinkman said.

The simulators were currently used by more than 40,000 institutions worldwide . . .

Friday, August 19, 2016

Statistics from President Obama's Social Security Administration show that the fastest-growing trend in naming newborns is gender-neutral first names, thus eliminating the need for future name changes once the child "decides its gender identity."

"Today’s parents have moved beyond the dichotomy of boy and girl names. They want their children to grow up and be themselves, free from stereotypes. Boys can wear nail polish, girls can ride skateboards. It’s all good."-- Linda Murray, Editor in Chief, BabyCenter (which declared 2015 “the year of the gender-neutral baby”)

"Think beyond the conventional choices. Any name not traditionally used for people (names of trees places, words and those that are invented) by definition transcend gender and can work equally well for girls or boys. There’s no reason that Arrow can’t be a girl’s name and Alaska a boy’s. . . . Feminism is cool again, gay marriage is the law of the land and transgender celebrities have come into the mainstream."-- Pamela Redmond Satran, baby-name expert

. . . At a time when Banana Republic has done away with pink and blue distinctions in a children’s line, some high schools have stopped using graduation gowns with different colors for boys and girls, and unisex is de rigueur in fashion, gender-blurring baby names are on the rise among American parents.

The numbers seem to bear this out. Researchers at Nameberry analyzed the baby name registry from the Social Security Administration and found that the number of babies given unisex names like Harper, Tatum and Quinn had risen 60 percent in the last decade, to 67,831 babies in 2015.

. . . in an era marked by Caitlyn Jenner’s endlessly publicized transition from Bruce, as well as gender-bending shows like Amazon’s “Transparent,” the unisex baby name may also prove to be in its infancy.

Nameberry, one of the top baby name destinations on the Internet for expecting parents, recently compiled a list of their top 50 baby names for 2016. . . . one of the top Nameberry observations was the surge in gender-neutral monikers.

. . . here are some of my personal favorites from Nameberry's ranking. Good for boys, good for girls, good for choose-whatever-word-you-like-because-gender-is-a-construct: Riley, Avery, Rowan, Finley, Peyton, Jude, Sage, Augustine, Arlo, Charlie.

When it comes to naming your kid these days, there really aren't any hard and fast rules — especially in regard to gender norms. The hottest names are actually being used for girls and boys. (Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, who both have popular unisex names, are obviously the coolest parents for choosing to name their baby girl James.)

To read the entire article above, and see all 25 "Super-Cool" names, CLICK HERE.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Prolific pornography is flooding society with imaginary feminine perfection and images of perpetual sexual experiences resulting in a generation of men who are not aroused by women in the flesh.

"So one of the first assessment questions I'd always ask now is about pornography and masturbatory habit because that can be the cause of their issues about maintaining an erection with a partner."-- Angela Gregory, psychosexual therapist"[We found] very high rates of erectile dysfunction in young, compulsive porn users, with compulsiveness similar to drug addiction."-- 2014 Cambridge University study

“Due to the pornography available on the Internet, we are finding out that this type of sex dysfunction is a real entity,” Dr. David B. Samadi, chairman of the urology department and chief of robotic surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told Everyday Health. “It is a problem in the brain, not the penis.”

Samadi said porn addiction could theoretically harm someone of any age’s sexual performance, but that he mostly sees it among young men in their teens and 20s. About 40 million adults in the U.S. visit porn websites on a regular basis, according to Psych Guides.

“In my particular practice, I will say 15 to 20 percent of the erectile dysfunction I see is related to porn consumption,” Dr. Muhammed Mirza, an internist based in Jersey City, told Everyday Health.

Samadi compared the issue to alcohol. Someone who drinks more and more alcohol eventually builds up a tolerance and needs more to feel the effects. Additionally, porn can set up unrealistic expectations for reality.

One survey of 28,000 Italian men found that "excessive consumption" of porn, starting at age 14, and daily consumption in their early to mid-20s, desensitized men to even the most violent images. According to the head of the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine, this can cause male sexual dysfunction by lowering libido and eventually leading to an inability to get an erection.

It’s not necessarily how much porn a person watches. The type can also play a role, Samadi said. Unlike the soft-core porn images seen in such magazines as Playboy or Penthouse, online pornography is generally more graphic and often depicts kinky, deviant, or even violent behavior. It's also available 24/7.

Chronic porn consumption can cause a shift in brain chemicals that may contribute to organic erectile dysfunction, said Dr. Mirza. “Your expectations become much higher than normal,” he said. "If you look at any porn video image, they are magnified. This is not what the normal anatomy looks like.”

"'Reel' life is very different than real life," said Nicole Sachs, LCSW, a social worker in Rehoboth, Del., and the author of "The Meaning of Truth." The unrealistic imagery seen in some pornography can make men or women feel self-conscious, which could lead to problems with sexual function or intimacy, she said.

Alexander Rhodes grew up in a home full of computers . . . Soon the initial curiosity evolved into a daily devotion to hard-core pornography — an explorative compulsion turned addiction with up to 14 porn sessions a day . . .

The routine continued once he enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, where he started a relationship with a young woman and soon discovered problems with his own sexual performance. He couldn’t continue without fantasizing about pornography. Nothing quite worked when he focused solely on her.

That was the turning point.

What Mr. Rhodes and others describe as porn addiction and porn-induced erectile dysfunction are hot topics among psychologists, psychiatrists, researchers and even pornographers. In time he finally quit the porn habit and founded the successful porn-recovery platform NoFap.com.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Americans United for Separation of Church and State plans to sue the Berkeley County School District based in Moncks Corner, South Carolina because the Board has voted to ignore the atheists' threats and continue a years-long practice of opening board meetings with the Lord's Prayer.

“We’re Americans, aren’t we? Looking back at where our nation began we cannot, cannot as a nation forget we have a God and all that we do we must acknowledge that. Let’s continue to do the right thing … there’s nothing wrong with public prayer as long as we do it in accordance with the law.”-- Julius Barnes, board member

The Post and Courier of Charleston reports the school board gave initial approval Tuesday after dropping the use of the prayer earlier this year. The board has been using a moment of silence instead.

State Sen. Larry Grooms sent the board a letter signed by 50 state lawmakers citing a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision reaffirming the right to pray at public meetings. Gov. Nikki Haley last month signed a state law allowing school boards the right to open meetings with prayer.

Despite receiving a letter the day before its meeting saying prayer at school board meetings violates the U.S. Constitution, Berkeley County School District’s school board has unanimously voted for the first of two readings on a policy that would bring prayer back to the beginning of its meetings.

The policy states:

“The public invocation will be non-sectarian and non-denominational, and will not proselytize for or advance any one or disparage any other, faith or belief. The public invocation is for the benefit of the Board, but no member of the Board, or any other person, attending, the meeting, will be required to participate in the public invocation. The public invocation will be offered on a voluntary basis by a member of the Board selected by the Board Chair or his/her designee.”

In July, state Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Charleston, sent a letter to board members — signed by 50 legislators — citing a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Town of Greece v. Galloway, which reaffirmed the right to pray at public meetings. Additionally on June 3, Gov. Nikki Haley signed an amendment to the Public Prayer and Invocation Act that includes a school board as being as a “deliberative body” with the right to open meetings with an invocation.

“I appreciate everyone’s hard work on working through this policy in light of the threats we’ve gotten,” said board member Mac McQuillin, a lawyer.

Friday, August 05, 2016

The Satanic Temple has launched a nation-wide campaign to force public schools to sanction “Educatin’ with Satan” after-school programs in every school that allows Christian clubs. Stu De Haan, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple’s Arizona chapter, said he has received expressions of interest in the new clubs from parents, teachers and students.

“[Schools] cannot prohibit students from forming an After School Satan Club on the same terms as the [Christian] Good News Club.”-- Richard Katskee, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The Satanic Temple says it’s bringing the After-School Satan club to schools across the country that now host the evangelical Christian Good News Club, including Centennial Elementary in Mount Vernon and Point Defiance Elementary in Tacoma.

Tarkus Claypool, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple’s Seattle chapter, said the Good News Club indoctrinates children into superstitious, fear-based religion. In contrast, Claypool said, "we’re indoctrinating them into scientific, logical, rationalist, non-superstitious worldview. The program includes an art project and a curriculum that is based in free inquiry.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution allows Good News Clubs [sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF)] to meet on school grounds.

The Satanic Temple opposes religion in the schoolhouse, but says if it’s allowed, the same privilege must be granted to all religions.

Several U.S. school districts indicated Monday that they think the Satanic Temple’s plan to open “After School Satan” clubs in elementary schools probably conforms with their policies and local laws, and the Prince George’s County, Md., school system said it is reviewing a request to open such a club.

Parents and administrators have reacted coolly to the idea of setting up a Jesus-vs.-Satan fight in their elementary schools, with many showing curiosity and skepticism. School officials in Prince George’s said they have received a request to start a club and are reviewing it, but the school system has not had any discussions with the Satanic Temple about it. The Temple said it wants to open a club at Bradbury Heights Elementary School, which is in the Capitol Heights neighborhood just outside the southeast edge of Washington.

Martha Wright, executive director of CEF of Maryland, acknowledged that the Satanic Temple has a right to have clubs in schools but also said she doesn’t really want the group there.

The Satanic Temple’s proposal to start After School Satan Clubs in schools across the country already has sparked conflict with at least one school district and has led a legal group to offer free assistance in fighting the emergence of the clubs.

The Roskruge Bilingual K-8 School in Tucson is one of eight schools that received a written proposal to establish an After School Satan Club on Monday, and on Tuesday, lawyers for the Tucson Unified School District demanded that the Satanic Temple remove the school’s name from its website. The temple listed Roskruge as a place where it has offered to present its curriculum, but the district argues that no club has been approved there.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder of the Satanic Temple, said the group does not intend to take the school’s name off its website. . . .

Mat Staver, founder of a Christian legal aid group that has represented the Child Evangelism Fellowship, said Greaves’ organization was illegitimate and an “atheist group masquerading” as religious. Greaves described Satanism as an atheist philosophy whose believers “feel it provides everything a religion provides to be legitimized as such.”

Greaves said his group could pose tough legal fights if its requests are denied.

In Utah, the Granite School District said that if the group meets set requirements, including paying rent, there’s nothing the district can do to stop it. District spokesman Ben Horsley said the group won’t be able to put up fliers in schools or talk to students during school hours, the same arrangement given to the Good News Club.

Monday, August 01, 2016

Health officials in locales where homosexual men concentrate are perplexed by recent outbreaks of invasive meningococcal disease, which kills one in ten of those infected.

“Certainly my patients have shown concern that something is running through the [homosexual] community like wildfire.”-- Dr. Jay Gladstein, a Los Angeles internal medicine doctor who mostly treats gay and bisexual men

There’s no known medical reason why meningitis, which is transmitted through saliva, would spread more among gay and bisexual men. Yet New York, Chicago and now Southern California have experienced outbreaks disproportionately affecting that population.

Gladstein, who is also an HIV specialist, said he thinks that the cases are likely among men who have multiple sexual partners, engage in anonymous sex and use drugs that make them more susceptible.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York City Department of Public Health launched a project to investigate the connection between gay men and meningitis. It’s possible that L.A. County will be included in the study as well, officials said.

The research may also consider whether meningitis can be transmitted in other ways, such as sexual routes that might be making gay men more susceptible, [medical epidemiologist at L.A. County’s Department of Public Health, Dr. Rachel] Civen said. The bacteria Neisseria meningitidis that leads to meningitis is known to colonize the throat and mouth, but researchers will investigate whether it can also colonize other parts of the body, such as the genitals or anus.

Meningitis is spread through close contact with an infected person. People can contract it through kissing, coughing or sneezing, or sharing cigarettes or drugs. It also spreads among people in group settings – like dorms, jails or shelters.

Symptoms of meningitis usually occur within five days. They include high fever, stiff neck, skin rash, severe headache, low blood pressure, sensitivity to bright lights and generalized muscle pains. The infection can cause brain damage, hearing loss and death. It progresses quickly, so immediate diagnosis and treatment is imperative, health experts say.

Los Angeles County and Orange County health officials urged all gay and bisexual men in the county to obtain vaccines today, regardless of their risk status, as the spread of meningitis has officially been labeled an outbreak by the state.

A spike in the number of new meningitis cases in May and June heightened the alarm among officials, hearkening back to the most recent outbreak of meningococcal disease, which occurred in 2014. However, the term "outbreak," as defined by the CDC, means the diagnosis of three or more cases over the course of three months, which is not necessarily a cause for panic, said The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach's Director of Health and Wellness Ismael Salamanca.